1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to vehicles suitable for traveling over rough terrain.
2. Description of the Related Art
Vehicles suitable for traveling over rough terrain are conventionally known. Among such vehicles are an all-terrain vehicle (hereinafter referred to as an “ATV”) and a recreational off-highway vehicle (hereinafter referred to as an “ROV”). Some ATVs and ROVs include an electronically controlled transmission or an “automated manual transmission (AMT)” that allows gears of the transmission to be shifted by an actuator in response to a gear shifting operation performed by a driver. In such a vehicle, a control signal is provided to the actuator so as to enable the shifting of the gears. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,257,081 discloses a vehicle including an electric control unit (ECU) having not only an engine control function but also a transmission control function.
Unfortunately, the ECU of the above conventional vehicle is inevitably large in size, because the ECU combines the engine control function and the transmission control function. For example, vehicles of the same type may be designed to be one equipped with an AMT (hereinafter referred to as an “AMT vehicle”) and one equipped with no AMT (hereinafter referred to as a “non-AMT” vehicle). In such a case, ECUs built to the same specifications are normally used in AMT and non-AMT vehicles, which means that not only the ECU of the AMT vehicle but also the ECU of the non-AMT vehicle is large in size. This complicates the layout of components, such as the ECU, in the non-AMT vehicle, and leads to an increase in cost of the non-AMT vehicle.